Dirty, Dirty Politics

Last Friday I was sent photographs of a leaflet that had been distributed in Trawsfynydd. The accompanying message was that they were handed out by a guy in a Mercedes.

The contents of the leaflet fit a pattern I became familiar with long ago. ‘Plaid Cymru’ or ‘Gwynedd Council’ is attacked but the real target is us, the Welsh people. That’s because having the natives running things really upsets a certain kind of English mindset, it challenges what they believe to be the natural order of things. Such people will not be satisfied until we are fully assimilated and every vestigial memory of our identity is destroyed.

Or maybe, as with Jacques Protic and other swivel-eyed obsessives, the real target is the Welsh language, which they blame for everything from infant mortality rates to potholes, with Plaid Cymru or Gwynedd just collateral damage, along with Labour, for Protic also targets ‘closet nationalists’ like Rhodri Morgan and Carwyn Jones. (A ‘closet’ in which both remained forever secreted.)

For Welsh medium education is also targeted in this leaflet, with defamatory references to an ‘English Not’, ‘language police’, and the suggestion that Welsh words are formed by adding ‘io’ to English words. A kind of Fast Show Channel 9 weather forecast with Poula ‘Skorchio’, but without the humour or any other redeeming features.

This opposition to ‘Gwynedd’/’Plaid Cymru’ can take bizarre forms. Around twenty years ago I recall a notable anti-Welsh campaigner arguing for local government reorganisation so that we might enjoy a council stretching along the Cardigan Bay coast because, it was argued, a coastal community had more in common with another coastal community 70 miles away than with a settlement 10 or 15 miles inland.

To understand the calculation behind this, mentally link Barmouth with Borth rather than with Blaenau Ffestiniog or Bala.

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After putting the leaflet out on social media I received a message on Saturday morning telling me that there were two persons involved, a man and a woman, and they’d been observed in a cafe in Trawsfynydd discussing the council election with other customers, and handing out what looked like the leaflet in question. One of the pair was the Independent councillor for Llangelynin ward, Louise Hughes. It made sense because I’d recently seen her in Tywyn driving a Mercedes.

Her male companion was described as being around 60 years of age, with dark/greying hair but not bald, quite tall, with wrinkles, and “scruffy”. Has anyone seen a man answering this description in the company of Councillor Louise Hughes?

I telephoned Louise Hughes around mid-day on Saturday and she admitted that she’d been in the Trawsfynydd cafe and, yes, she had handed out leaflets, but she became rather evasive on the nature of the leaflets and suggested she was doing it for someone else.

The reason she gave for being in the cafe was that she and her companion were on their way to canvas for Liberal Democrat Councillor Steven Churchman in Dolbenmaen ward, where he is opposed by a Plaid Cymru candidate. I am not suggesting that Churchman has any part in this despicable episode, so I invite Councillor Churchman to comment and make his position clear.

Louise Hughes also stood for Westminster in 2015, when she got 4.8% of the vote. She has stood for the Assembly twice, in 2011 and 2016. The first time was under the Llais Gwynedd banner, when she came in a respectable third, on 15.5% of the vote, but in 2016, standing as an Independent, she was fifth, with just 6.2%. So her star appears to be waning.

One of the names on her nomination paper from 2015 is George M Stevens, which might pass unnoticed until you realise that it’s her pal and political mentor, UKIP-leaning Councillor Mike Stevens. Why he should be so shy about using the name by which everyone knows him is a mystery.

Stevens it was who came up with the barmy scheme to have a local authority that would make Chile look fat. He has come up with many other barmy schemes, such as the cod and crow banner for Tywyn, which he used as an excuse to remove our national flag from Tywyn promenade (in case it frightens the tourists).

When he’s not being an annoying colonialist twat Stevens runs his own printing business in Tywyn, Genesis, which is very useful for someone who feels he has a vital message for the deluded masses unaware of the Plaid Cymru tyranny they live under.

Though I’m not for one minute suggesting that Mike Stevens printed the glossy and otherwise expensive leaflets being handed out by Louise Hughes and her scruffy companion in Trawsfynydd, and their allies in Dolgellau, such as MM and ARE.

What I am saying, and I say this quite clearly, is that this leaflet contravenes electoral and possibly other law, and those who wrote, published and distributed it, could be prosecuted, on the following grounds:

It describes itself as “a special Plaid Cymru Election edition”. Obviously it was not produced by Plaid Cymru. The party may care to take this up with the electoral authorities, or the police, or both.

It is election material, in that it is designed to influence how people vote on May 4th, yet it carries no imprint other than “Printy McPrintface”. This is definitely illegal, and not remotely funny.

Given what this leaflet says about an ‘English Not’ operating in Gwynedd schools and other references to the Welsh language it borders on being a hate crime.

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On Thursday we have an election in our ward of Bryncrug-Llanfihangel. Our sitting candidate, local woman Beth Lawton, is being opposed by a Royston Hammond of Llanegryn. The response has been one of confusion because no one seems to know Hammond.

The confusion is partly caused by the fact that he doesn’t live in our ward, for Llanegryn is in Louise Hughes’ Llangelynin ward, so why doesn’t he stand in that ward, which he must know better – if only marginally – than the ward he’s standing for? Louise Hughes is now returned unopposed.

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Well, the word in the local thés dansants is that Hammond and his wife Mercia are very pally with Louise Hughes. So it’s reasonable to assume that a deal has been cut to give Hughes a clear run – and time to distribute the vile leaflets – while Hammond tries to give the gang another councillor in a neighbouring ward.

On his leaflet Hammond says “I have run my own companies”. True, but it may not be the kind of record he should boast about. Here’s the list from the Companies House website. One company he’s recently been involved with was SHS Inns Ltd of Blackburn (latterly, Southampton), which was liquidated last year.

The only company that he’s been involved with that appears to be still standing is H.I.S.&S. Ltd. (Formerly known as Hammond Industrial Services Ltd.) Though Hammond himself resigned as a director 31 December 2015 his wife remains a director. Hammond appears to have been replaced in April 2016 by Susan Salt, who was also involved with them in the ill-fated SHS Inns Ltd.

The figures for H.I.S.&S. Ltd are not good. The balance sheet up to 31 July 2016 shows total assets of -£14,305 against a figure for the previous year of £4,481. There appears to be one (depreciating) asset, possibly a vehicle, which contributes £10,786 to the value of the company, down from £18,114 the previous year. The true picture might be even worse, for these figures are taken from an unaudited return.

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APOLOGY: In last year’s Assembly elections I voted for Louise Hughes, partly because I knew that the sitting AM Dafydd Elis Thomas was leaving Plaid Cymru. Now that I better understand her and the company she keeps I assure you it will never happen again. I shall henceforth do my best to atone for my mistake.

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BAY OF PLENTY

No, this has got nothing to do with New Zealand, or rugby, or the forthcoming Lions tour. Now read on.

Another curious publication was brought to my attention on Friday, this one being put through letter-boxes in the City of the Blest. It’s available here on a website that does not allow downloading. So I’d catch it while you can, for it may not be up for much longer.

The magazine is called ‘Vision Swansea Bay’, described as an “independent magazine” which “is independently funded and published by an association of local residents and business owners.” The first few pages are innocuous enough, the City Deal, Swansea University, the tidal lagoon, then comes a double-page spread on the council elections – which is all about the Labour Party.

For example, “Think Jeremy Corbyn is a loser? Oh dear, you’ve been brainwashed”.

In addition to mentoring young women, she has a company called iCreate Ltd. (There are a few other companies to be found for Dawn Muriel Lyle on the Companies House website.)

Another group with which she’s involved is Swansea Bay Futures Ltd, a company limited by guarantee and packed with local worthies, including academics and of course politicians; among them Meryl Gravell, the soon-to-retire Emissary on Earth for His Omnipotence Mark James; while among the mortals we find Rob Stewart, Labour leader of Swansea council, who we met just now in ‘Vision Swansea Bay’.

In her self-penned bio you will have noticed that, “Dawn is a motivational speaker for girls and school-leavers, and is passionate about raising aspirations and increasing opportunities for young women in Swansea and beyond.” Which presumably means that she goes around schools giving inspirational talks. For this she would need local education authority approval – no problem when Swansea and Neath Port Talbot are Labour controlled and she’s an “active member of the Labour Party”.

And it’s reasonable to assume that she gets paid by her friends in these Labour-run local authorities. Which means that what we have here is just a new slant on Labour cronyism. This woman, who modestly describes herself as “one of Wales leading women entrepreneurs”, might struggle without Labour Party patronage.

But what of those involved with the Swansea Bay project, who represent all political parties and none; how do they feel about the brand being used to promote the Labour Party just a week before a council election? Feedback I’ve already had suggests storm clouds may be gathering.

And who’s paying for it, is it Swansea Bay Futures? Is it the Labour Party? According to the imprint, “VISION is independently published by an association of local residents”! (That word ‘independent[ly]’ again!)

Are we to believe that a group of residents met up, maybe in an Uplands coffee house, and for no better reason than having time on their hands, decided to bring out a magazine; most of which consists of regurgitated ‘news’ available elsewhere, with the only departures being plugs for the Labour Party and a full-page ad for Dawn Lyle’s company?

You can buy that or you can believe my interpretation, which is that Dawn Lyle and Swansea Labour Party have subverted a cross-party or non-party body (and perhaps used its resources), to bring out a crude and obvious plug for a worried Labour Party just ahead of an election. Lay your bets!

If I’m right then this magazine is Labour Party electioneering material with a false or misleading imprint. An offence.

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LEE WATERS AM

The Assembly Member for Llanelli has become something of a celebrity in some political circles, partly due to his support for the ‘protesters’ whose knuckles dragging outside Llangennech school have so disturbed the children they claim to be speaking for, and partly because of the widely-held belief that, despite being the AM for Llanelli, the man has never lived in that town.

To my knowledge, no one has ever made a formal complaint, or asked for an investigation into whether Lee Waters might have committed an offence, so I decided to do it myself.

First, I wrote to a couple of departments in the Assembly (the website not making it clear who to contact) and was eventually advised by the office of the Standards Commissioner that I should take my complaint to Paul Callard of Dyfed Powys Police, who “is the single point of contact on election matters”.

I telephoned Mr Callard on Friday. (Busy day, Friday.) He confirmed that any complaint should be addressed to him, and that time was running out, because there is only a year from the date of the election – 5 May 2016 – to make a complaint.

Fundamentally, my complaint hinges on the fact that the nomination paper submitted by a candidate must give the ‘Home Address’. Waters gave as his home address last year 25 New Zealand Street, Llanelli, when all the evidence points to him living in Barry.

It doesn’t help Waters’ case that if you read the list of nominated candidates from last year you will see that two of them knew the law, and complied with it, stating that they did not live in the constituency. Though I guarantee that, like Waters, they stayed in Llanelli at times during the campaign.

UPDATE 04.05.2017: After telephoning him at around mid-day yesterday I was told by Mr Callard that I would receive an answer later in the day, and it arrived at around 3:45. According to Mr Callard the year allowed in which to make a complain starts from the date on the ‘Statement of Persons Nominated’, in this case 8th April. So my complaint was too late.

Which would appear to be the end of the matter. But at least I tried, which is more than can be said for anyone else. I won’t make that mistake again.

115 thoughts on “Dirty, Dirty Politics”

“Right of Centre Nationalist Perspective” Presumably it would be right to presume that you DO preach from a Plaid prospective? MY Councillor AM and MP are all Plaid members and have my full support but I am concerned that should anyone question some of their decisions those people are condemned as being racist etc.and not to be given the time of day. Thankfully we live in a democracy and as such should be able to have differing views from others without fear of being demonised in blogs or on Twitter or Facebook. It is to be noted that more Councillors of All political persuasion should be prepared to grow some backbone and support the 2 Plaid Councillors and 1 Independent and call for a full meeting to debate the actions of the Carmarthen Council CEO and the way it reflects so badly on the Council as a whole. More publicity over this matter can only help. It is quite apparent that Cardiff Bay show NO wish to get involved although must surely be aware of the growing concerns of the Carmarthen Electorate.

What are you trying to say? Can you really see your Plaid Cymru representatives bringing out anything comparable to the leaflet in Gwynedd?
As for Mark James, and the refusal of Cardiff Bay to become involved, we are in agreement. So what’s your beef?

Not a beef. A total lack of faith in the local Council and Cardiff Bay. .Answerable to no one. Any criticism met with threats of legal action. My dear late Father in Law, Welsh born and bred would rise in his grave if he knew the way that these two institutions have treated us and many others .Lives have been ruined both by their actions and indeed their in -actions.

Andrew The right to question and indeed challenge the decisions and actions of our democratically elected representatives is something to be defended and cherished. However that is a lot different to riding around distributing misleading garbage regarding any area of policy be it education, health or whatever. Slagging off the Welsh Language and its users has become the default position of so many dissenters who have no other means of getting their own views across to the public at large.
If a person can demonstrate that a capacity for learning one language is superior to a capacity for learning two or more then lets see that evidence. In the case of Welsh, the dissenters need to look very closely at research carried out over recent years. Far from electing to study another language, most commonly the major European languages, most of our young people, bilingual and mono English, elect to quit studying languages at the earliest possible date. So much for the glib “if they weren’t forced to “do” Welsh they’d be busy learning another language” stance. Just another load of tripe spun out by supremacist racist bigots who wish to inflict their culture and values on the nation regardless of merit.

As for Carmarthenshire C.C I am far removed from that convoluted mess. I seriously doubt whether any political party in our spectrum has the will to chop that lot up and start over again. As for Cynulliad, well they know damn well that there are too many guilty people sitting as Labour members and will only step in to “rectify” matters if there is a seismic shift that tips Labour into a serious minority position with no hope of making good within the coming term. Then perhaps you would get some ceremonial blood letting because those penalised would not be Party people.

Just noticed Neil Mc’s tweet in your right hand column. My god look at that old boot raising the issue of violence towards women. How does she know ? Sexual assault ? With a face like that she is a safe zone – no man with one working eyeball is going near that pig unless of course he has a highly deviant liking for farm animals.

I don’t slag off women, I slag off people whose own behaviours make them fair game. See the difference ? or are you so wrapped up in the cloak of a “victim” that you can’t see straight ? Today’s women have as much capacity for downright vicious behaviour as any male, so wake up it’s 2017.

Yes, of course women can be as nasty as men, as they always have been able to be, and should never be above being called out for such, in appropriate terms. But your language,and the terminology you use here is unacceptably sexist and derogatory towards women.

Also, making comments that demean the appearance of another human being are pretty low, and indicative of a rather immature personality. Maybe someone is no oil painting to look at, but surely that has no relevance here?

Target the idea. the behavior, the attitude, the lie. The personal comment you wrote can be used as a great “get out of jail free” card by the person in question or the like minded. Worse your opinion can be used to taint Neil Mc – look at the sort of person that supports him, birds of a feather. Better thing would have been an apology rather than a justification.

Apology ? Yes you are quite right although the only offended party who merits one could be Neil McEvoy. So to Neil McEvoy I extend my sincerest apology, if my words or my actions in the past present or future cause you grief, unhappiness or dissatisfaction please feel free to get in touch ( via here perhaps ) and tell me to stop whatever I am doing.

“tell me to stop whatever I am doing.”
Perhaps you should be more proactive and spend the time you’re sat waiting for N Mc to contact you working out what is that you’re doing. Unless you think it’s his job to manage you.

Personally I’m not expecting guidance from politicians but I’ll take into consideration any given regardless of the source.

You might like to consider (even though I’m not the boss of you) that although someone might have “access to advise and comment” .to you they might choose not to. Therefore you shouldn’t imagine that a lack of advice or comment implies that they agree with what you write.

It should be noted that it was a Llais Gwynedd county councillor; Gwilym Euros Roberts (Blaenau Ffestiniog) was jailed for four and a half years for a frenzied knife attack on his former wife back in 2013.

Isn’t it strange that while Harriet PD (Labour Party) is making untrue smears against Neil McEvoy (see above) about ‘assaulting women’, they are completely silent on convicted frenzied knife attacks against women who are hard working members of Plaid Cymru. The reality is that Harriet and her fellow travellers don’t care about the plight of women who are genuine victims, and resort to smears against the innocent who are fighting for the future of Wales.

Harriets’ smears is a measure of the cloth of the Labour party in Wales. She does women, throughout our country, a disservice and in many cases puts women who are genuinely vulnerable, at risk.

Jac – thanks for publicising the vacuous garbage spouted by Dawn Lyle. It is now virtually obligatory in certain circles for women to describe themselves exactly as Dawn Lyle does – they are all ‘social entrepreneurs’ who are ‘passionate’ about ‘inspiring’ and ’empowering’ ‘girls and women’. This guff – which frequently emanates from women who have bugger all expertise in anything and have certainly never run a genuine business – seems to be very effective at drawing down various types of funding from the Welsh Govt. The first fine example of this that I encountered was the notorious Rebecca Jones some years ago who was somehow attached to Bangor University’s Management Centre although no-one knew what she actually did there. She left Bangor under a huge cloud – there were allegations that she had discovered wrong-doing at the Management Centre and had effectively blackmailed someone before exiting – and reinvented herself on social media as ‘Red Shoe Biz Woman’, claiming to be keen to ’empower’ and ‘inspire’ ‘women like you’ by ‘mentoring’ business start-ups. She was very obviously appealing to very naïve women who knew nothing about business because the language could have been lifted from a women’s magazine – Rebecca understands your life ‘as a mum’ sort of thing. The upshot was that to benefit from Rebecca’s ‘mentoring’, an empowered woman had to pay Rebecca quite a lot of money in return for a laughable e book. I eventually discovered a copy of Rebecca’s CV – it seems that the only qualification that she actually had was an NNEB nursery nursing qualification and one of the few real jobs that she’d held down had been as a nanny. Nothing wrong with having an NNEB or indeed working as a nanny, but how does a nursery nurse/nanny of very little experience blag her way into a University led Management Centre and then set up shop as a ‘mentor’ for aspiring business women?? At the same time that Rebecca departed from the Management Centre I was told that her husband parted from Anglesey County Council under an equally big cloud. Rebecca and husband then went down to south west Wales no doubt to fleece a few more people. Rebecca was not a one-off – a few years later a woman living in Bethesda who was known to me whom I knew had been repeatedly fired from research assistant posts at various universities also reconstructed herself as a ‘businesswoman/mentor’ with the help of a Welsh Govt grant. More recently she has taken to exploiting unpaid labour in a café that she runs as a ‘social enterprise’ – there will have been another grant received to establish that. If any of this resulted in anyone establishing a genuine, useful business I would applaud it, but none of these ‘enterprises’ lead to anything but the exploitation of others. And its all done in the name of ’empowering women’, it is a complete insult. There is an academic version of this sort of bullshit at Swansea University, in the person of one Professor Hilary Lappin-Scott – who is a not very bright but very pushy microbiologist who has constructed herself as an expert on ‘gender’ on the grounds that she happens to be a woman. I and many other women whom I know are seriously pissed off to see the Welsh Govt funding these charlatans because someone somewhere believes that this equates to ‘feminism’….It’s about as helpful to women as Harriet Harman’s patronising pink minibus was in their election campaign…

And there are twice as many incompetent men masquerading as socual entrepreneurs – check out mike theodolou independent candidate fro Burry Port in CCC election – can you stop slagging off women in this blog please- and stick to exposing ineffectual “people” –

You’re absolutely right, it will never happen again. I only allowed it because she had virtually called Neil McEvoy a rapist on Facebook. Though, in fairness, Dafis didn’t say anything about social entrepreneurs.

Hi Gaynor – I take your point, I wasn’t trying to go for women per se, my comments were aimed at highlighting how a type of ruthless highly exploitative woman is now able to gain funding to set themselves up in business as long as they claim to be ’empowering’ or ‘inspiring’ other women. You are quite right about the quantity of dodgy male ‘entrepreneurs’ blighting the landscape, the daddy of them all being one Dylan Jones-Evans – who robustly promoted the aforementioned ‘Red Shoe Biz Woman’ on social media himself.

hello drsally. Fancy you taking a shot at Dylan J-E , now approaching “untouchable” status with his relationships with Cynulliad, media outlets ( press and broadcast ) blogs, award ceremonies, serial professor at a number of univerities specialising in entrepreneurship and related subjects. So far so good, for him.

And that is what tells you how dull, boring and unimaginative we are as a nation. We have bought into this “let’s teach people to be entrepreneurs” mantra lock stock and barrel. It’s patently obvious to anyone who’s ever had a brush with such people that they kind of evolve from their environment by recognising opportunities, exploiting them, and are not created on undergrad or masters programmes. Uni’s and formal training in general can be useful in grafting on key skills as the entrepreneur’s creation grows but this notion that it’s all taught is about as daft as it comes. Maybe that’s one of the reasons we get so many social entrepreneurs in Wales, they’ve all come off these post grad programmes and spot an opportunity to grab some cash from a Cynulliad that likes to be seen backing entrepreneurs regardless of merit.

Henry Ford didn’t need to be taught entrepreneurship by an academic and Dostoevsky never went on a creative writing course. But believing these talents can be taught keeps lots of otherwise useless people in jobs.

Indeed. Very very few famous authors went on creative writing courses and I struggle to think of a famous masterpiece artist that has an A level in Art.

And as far as I am aware, nobody from the really big rock bands has got a degree in music and most left school without A levels (alttough Jagger and Richards went to the LSE I beleive and some of Pink Floyd also read economics. My dad, now in his 80’s and still touring occasionally with Toyah Wilcox, once shared a rail compartment with from Colwyn Bay all the way to London via Crewe with Jagger and Richards in the 1960s and described them as perfect gentlemen, polite and exceptionally well mannered and not at all like their stage personality)

Dafis – Dylan may have reached the end of the line (I think even the Tories have realised that he wasn’t an asset), but I’ve just seen on BBC Wales online that one Angela Jones-Evans has just been selected as the Tory candidate for Newport in the forthcoming general election. That is Dylan’s wife. I have always been told that she is much nicer than him and very long-suffering, but knowing Dylan he will be pulling her strings and ruthlessly using her to advance himself. I see that there’s been a row over the selection of her and other candidates too, they have been imposed by Tory Party HQ. So how did Angela manage to get into a position whereby she was imposed from on high?
Jac – Whilst I would agree that Dostoevsky did not need a creative writing class, those classes are phenomenally popular and are run by universities because they are a money spinner, people will cough up for them. I don’t see anything wrong with someone doing this, although I suspect that many universities do play into the fantasies of the students with less ability that they’re going to hit the big time if they attend the course. Everyone remembers people like Ian McEwan who emerged from the creative writing course at UEA, but very few courses have produced writers enjoying that sort of success. However at least those courses do actually usually have a successful writer associated with them – although there is some abuse of those positions with famous names drawing a salary but contributing bugger all to the course, I don’t think it’s in the league of the con that is ‘entrepreneurship’ in universities, courses inevitably led by spivs – and of course ‘teaching’ entrepreneurship is a contradiction in terms. No real businessperson or entrepreneur is going to want to work in a university, they want to run their businesses and indeed do, which is why the calibre of people in university business schools is so low. At least some of those involved in teaching creative writing are of the ilk to enjoy doing this as well as doing the actual writing. I would agree with Dafis that Wales has brought into a delusion that if we bang on about ‘entrepreneurs’ and claim to be encouraging and funding such people then our economy is going to be turned around. Along with that is the peddling of the notion that ‘business’ is the route to multi-millions – the thing that seems to distinguish most successful businesspeople is their love for and enthusiasm for what they are doing, which fuelled them in the early years of hard work and little return. Alan Sugar and his ridiculous TV programme are not the key to producing a generation of successful businesspeople.

Forgot to mention something that may be of interest to your readers Jac. That is, the dreadful Hilary Lappin-Scott has recently been exploiting for all it is worth her claim to be interested in supplying Wales with female expertise in Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths and I understand has been busy organising conferences at Swansea on the basis of this. Lappin-Scott spent a brief time at Bangor University some years ago – she was a crass linguistically and culturally insensitive anti-Welsh bigot who complained about the translation facilities provided at meetings. She very obviously loathed and held in contempt everything about Wales and ‘the Welsh’ and the word on the ground was that she only took the post at Bangor because she was going nowhere in her previous post at Exeter… Someone needs to start examining Lappin-Scott’s claims very closely as well as the process by which she is working her way up a greasy pole…

Jac, thought you may enjoy this e-mail from the Greens. And Labour think they’ve got problems.

Petra Haig
1 May at 20:00

EXTRAORDINARY GENERAL MEETING
of the North West Wales Green Party

7.30 Tuesday 16 May, back room, Albion Inn, Conwy

The current committee is calling this EGM at a critical time in the life of the NWWGP. The size of the committee has shrunk to a number too small to sustain a fully working party. We are therefore inviting any of you who want to contribute to come to the EGM and join the committee. We hope enough people will volunteer to give the NWWGP a viable future. The EGM will also be an opportunity for everyone to consider options should this hope not be realised.

If you are interested but cannot attend the EGM, or want some idea of what might be involved, please contact John Farrar (johnfarrar@phonecoop.coop) (membership secretary) or Petra Haig (petrahaig@btopenworld.com) (secretary).

AGENDA
1. Introduction, apologies.
2. Report on the NWWGP.
3. Election of new officers.
4. Finances.
5. Options for the future of the NWWGP.
6. AOB.

Couldn’t happen to nicer people. Though in a sense I’m surprised, because if people are kicking against the system then I would expect the Greens to be one of the beneficiaries. Unless, of course, people think they’re totally fucking irrelevant in the current political climate.

If the John Farrar named is the John Farrar that I think it is – the retired plant biologist from Bangor University – his presence in the party alone will be what is causing it to die. This is a man who found it nigh-on impossible to answer students questions without shouting at them, who swore constantly every time he spoke to – or shouted at – another member of staff and who was eventually elevated to PVC for Research. He had a heart attack and so despised was he that no-one actually gave a toss – he had spent the past few years bullying everyone and then completely screwed up the University’s RAE submission. His heart attack was rumoured to have been brought on by a grade A row with the deputy VC Fergus Lowe and someone neatly summed up the situation as ‘the most hated man in Bangor has very nearly succeeded in killing the second most hated man in Bangor’. Equally pertinent comments were made when Farrar announced his retirement – he declined the offer of a party and an e mail was circulated stating that ‘John doesn’t want a fuss’. It was observed that was just as well because he wasn’t going to get one. A collection for a leaving present was set up, but I don’t know anyone who contributed. Why he is trying politics I cannot fathom – the one thing that Farrar is completely devoid of is social skills and charm which are necessary even in the north west Wales Green Party. I attended a University function some years ago at which the highlight was going to be dinner with the Vice Chancellor for the guests, where they were going to be asked to donate to a fundraising campaign for the University. Farrar was obliged to attend in his capacity as a senior manager of the institution. When we were all queuing up for lunch, Farrar walked into the room, approached another prof and cheerily yelled out ‘God I can think of better things to do on a Saturday than come in here’. Right in front of all the guests who were going to be asked to open their cheque books….
Other highlights of Farrar’s career included telling one of his PhD students what to write on the postgraduate feedback form – which ironically was supposed to be how the University would be able to identify bad PhD supervisors. This PhD student had such a dreadful experience at Farrar’s hands that he left academia after he finished his PhD. Farrar also was a major reason why my own PhD supervisor – a very much brighter and nicer man than Farrar – took early retirement from Bangor. Farrar and co had made his life unbearable. The irony was that just before bullying my supervisor out, Farrar had announced plans to attract only the best academics to Bangor. Where did my supervisor get a job after Farrar pushed him out? University of Oxford no less. I also knew a professor who told me that a mate of his, a big name in biology, had been headhunted by Bangor – he was tempted but when he met one John Farrar he was told so many obvious lies in terms of the salary and facilities that he would receive if he went to Bangor, that he decided not to risk relocating to work under such a dishonest man.
Farrar likes to think of himself as eco-friendly, but he destroys everything that he touches. Including it would appear the north west Wales Green Party.

Hey Jac. I have to confess, from what I’ve heard of Louise Hughes, she doesn’t seem to be a very consistent politician. When she was a member of Llais Gwynedd then she seemed to be on the pro-Welsh language side, arguing that the closing of rural schools would be an anglicising force and yet now she seems to be a female version of Jack Protick or whatever his name is. How on earth she even got 4.5% of the vote will always be a mystery to me. Is it that she’s managed to capture all the ‘down with all that welsh crap’ vote in Gwynedd, or at least in the anglicised Harlech-Barmouth-Dolgellau-Tywyn corridor?

Now its interesting that she has targeted both Trawsfynydd and Dolgellau. The two places are very different from each other, language wise. According to figures on each place’s respective primary schools, in Trawsfynydd, about 90% of children speak Welsh at home there, while in Dolgellau its only 20-25%. I can understand why she would target Dolgellau, hoping that among the non-welsh speaking parents there, there would be some Cymru-phobic ones but I hardly understand why on earth she would target Trawsfynydd given its demographics. Also, on the topic of Dolgellau, its always stunned me how so few children there speak Welsh at home (compared to majorities speaking it at home in Bala and Blaenau Ffestiniog etc), given that 64.8% of the population in Dolgellau claimed to speak Welsh in 2011 and that only a third of the population was born outside Wales.

The way I think we should view Louise Hughes and Mike Stevens’s bigotry is as an anti-Welsh movement within the ‘little England beyond Wales’ enclave that is Harlech-Barmouth-Dolgellau and Tywyn just as the Sudetan Germans who lived within the Czechoslovakia in the inter-war period were perhaps more slavophobic than Germans back in Germany. The difference is that at least the Sudeten Germans were indigenous to the Sudetenland, whereas the coastal and southern Meirionydd enclave is something which has gradually emerged under Welsh Nationalists’ noses during the 20th century, beginning between 1911 and 1921, when the percentage of 3-4 year old children in Barmouth able to speak Welsh fell below 50% for the first time, before spreading to neighboring parishes. Let’s just hope that nobody in Gwynedd is foolish enough to believe any of this, and that Louise Hughes and her allies are exposed.

You must remember that she was new to the council, Independent, anti-Plaid, and so without realising properly what she was joining, she threw in her lot with Owain Williams and his band.

When I spoke with her last Saturday, her excuse for being in Trawsfynydd was that she (and presumably her companion) were on their way to Dolbenmaen to canvass for Steven Churchman. That may be true, which might make the handing out of leaflets in the Trawsfynydd cafe spontaneous and unplanned.

The demographics for the coastal strip of south Meirionnydd are disappointing but bear in mind a couple of facts. First, many of the English living here are elderly, and tend to keep to themselves, two-thirds in the over 65 category are English born. Second, many of the younger ones are still mindful of being in someone else’s country, and are a little reticent.

The problems arise when there is a concentration of younger settlers with a few ‘pushy’ individuals to lead and encourage them, and they find little opposition from within the Welsh population. This comes about too often because so many of our brightest and best are drawn off to Cardiff and elsewhere.

You will thoroughly enjoy checking out Mr. Micheal Theodoulou. Start with Companies House and see the number of companies with which he has been associated – meaning, founded and found funding for from 1993 onwards. Such as this one http://cbsa.org.uk/ Most, if not all, 3rd sector organisations and the inevitable funding from Big, CCC, WG etc etc. A real chancer who has made a living from the public purse for years. And a reputation for being a real chancer too. Beloved by CCC people until he wasn’t in late 90’s early 2000’s. Because the regeneration agenda is not really understood by those lower down council hierarchies he has been able to blag his way into many arena. Not least through the late and not at all lamented Communities First “anti-poverty programme”. He tried to make his mark in Swansea on the back of that. The Community Interest Company (CIC) was a godsend for him…….because with that model it is easier to own, control and give yourself a big salary from the public funding you aquire than it ever is in a charitable company. Enjoy.

I think that’s part of his act as a Prof at Univ of West of England ( I presume he’s still there ) Make no mistake this guy gets around and moves in a lot of influential circles. I dare say he has written a lot of interesting stuff especially about picking up ideas and mobilising them into useful commercial propositions, but this entrepreneurship lark is just too much now. He is popular in certain political circles because he has a talent for writing up a positive spin on projects and Llais y Sais/ Wasting Mule use him regularly. At least he operates on a higher level of intellect than their other scribblers.

I took a lot of interest in the dreadful Dylan a few years ago Dafis – as far as I could see he was all spin, with a dose of very serious nastiness which I suspect was the key to his ‘success’. There were some allegations of very serious workplace bullying against him when he worked at Bangor University and at least one of those people didn’t sue because the nature of the misconduct was so deeply personal and regarding a matter so sensitive that they would not have wanted it publicised. Dylan was also successful in persuading other members of staff to join him in his bad behaviour, so the person that he was targeting didn’t stand a chance really. I was told by someone close to one of the many businesses that Dylan claimed to be ‘mentoring’ that Dylan was just fleecing those businesses. I know that he has written columns for the Daily Post and Western Mail but it’s all pretty low-level stuff aimed at people who do not have sufficient knowledge to see through the bullshit. It is very noticeable that when Dylan embarks on projects with people who do have ability it all goes pear shaped very quickly and the narrative is always the same – Dylan has done something appalling. I remember that a few years ago he started knocking around with David Melding and Melding was praising Dylan to the skies, but that partnership died a death very quickly, so what happened there? The best description of Dylan’s ability that was ever given to me was from an academic at Bangor who knew him well, who described him as being ‘clever but in a rather low down cunning way, but also very naive’. Interestingly enough this man told me that he didn’t actually like Dylan, but didn’t want him as an enemy because Dylan was so unscrupulous. A few months after hearing this, Dylan announced his intention to stand as the Tory candidate for Aberconwy. On the day of his selection he wined and dined someone I know and they drank a toast to ‘revenge on Bangor University’ – Bangor had kicked him out previously and he was having to slum it at Glyndwr. It transpired that the only reason Dylan wanted to be a Tory AM was to become a minister with the education portfolio to destroy Bangor University – and he also told his dining companion that he’d be First Minister by the time he was 50. Well it all went horribly wrong because he didn’t get elected – he hadn’t thought of that particular problem. I was told some while after this that Dylan had plans to realise his ambitions through his wife Angela. Whether destroying Bangor University is still their sole ambition in life I do not know – Dylan will have made plenty more enemies by now and may have a few other people to vent his spleen on. I presumed that Dylan had left for England because no-one in Wales would touch him with a barge-pole any longer…

Although working at UWE he is frequently attending all sorts of events in the business and political demi-monde in Cardiff where an awful lot of preliminary shuffling and posturing goes on. Certainly part of the elite schmoozing crowd that think they are Wales branch of Masters of the Universe !

Tut tut boys & girls – weren’t opposite sexes supposed to love one another? After all isn’t that how we’ve managed to reach a population of 7.3 billion!

It seems to me that this frigging nonsense of misogyny and misandry is a load of crap that has come to the fore at the exact same time as political correctness. Argue about politics, religion, injustices, wars, ANY bloody thing, but don’t fall into this phoney sex wars game. It’s an irrelevant side show distraction.

If I have a comment to make about a man who happens to be a knob head – I’ll say so, if I think a twat of a woman is wrong I’ll also say so. Balls to this PC gone crazy world. We live in a period where you’re policed about what you say, and increasingly about what you supposedly think.

In the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), by George Orwell, the Thought Police (Thinkpol) are the secret police of the superstate Oceania, who discover and punish thought crime, personal and political thoughts unapproved by the State. Sounds familiar?

Fight against it, say what you mean and mean what you say – sod those who dress it up as racism, misogyny, misandry, sexism, anti Semitism (that’s the most stupid of the lot) or any other ‘ism’ it’s shit, and increasingly the main stream media (MSM) encourages everyone to rile against anything anyone says – if it’s able to put that negative spin on it, and portray it as some sort of evil anti establishment threat.

Who the hell has the right to dictate what any one else says, thinks or writes? If you think that what’s said is wrong debate it and prove it’s wrong – don’t just gag the person that says it. And yes there are unscrupulous females who use sexism and women’s rights as a tool (is that an acceptable word in this context?) To gain an unfair advantage over others in their quest for prominence and illusionary success. Men do not have a monopoly when it comes to deviousness or evil works, it’s a ‘human’ thing – take your pick – male or female. And don’t get me started on women only selection lists . . . .

Croeso Gee, bore da. A little bit of skirmishing has occurred with those who prefer to check the spelling rather than the message ! Some of our fellow correspondents need to find the backbone to occasionally get down into the gutter and confront our opponent or our enemy at his/her own level. I appreciate that many of those in regulation grey suits and polished shoes find that level of confrontation distasteful. Yet they remain unwilling to just leave it those of us who still have some residual bottle and don’t mind the dirt to get on with it. Our enemies play dirty all the time, so we have a simple choice – get some retaliation in sharpish or go play another game.

Perhaps you two could help me out.
What do I say when a really beautiful woman or a really handsome man argues that Welsh medium education should be scrapped or that Cymru should be split into a Severnside and a Merseyside economic regions or that we should complete the assimilation of Wales into England?
I can’t say – no wonder they have bad ideas just look at their appearance.

Try – “listen lovely boy/girl, you may be good looking but you don’t half talk a load of undiluted bollocks” Later if the dialogue is not productive try something very provocative like – “are you a lizard, does that outer shell peel off to reveal a disgusting monster underneath”

Some of these beauties ( male and female ) are living proof that you can’t combine good looks with a wealth of talent although there are a few exceptions turning up on this site !!!

It’s very rare that anything gets my rag off like that episode a few days ago. Had that lady been a raving beauty I would have drummed up something just to let off the build up of steam. You may not think McEvoy is worth backing, my view is that he is a rare asset, warts and all, at present . At my age saving up the steam only screws my blood pressure and I’m not ready to play out the final scene just yet.

“Had that lady been a raving beauty I would have drummed up something just to let off the build up of steam.”
This is the crux of the matter isn’t it. Letting off steam by targeting someone’s looks or other irrelevancy rather than their behavior is lazy and suggests that letting off steam is more important to you than putting more effort into producing criticism that damns the action that’s got you worked up.
If you want to convince anyone who’s neutral or new to this issue to sympathise with N Mc then your self indulgent steam letting will do the opposite. In the end it depends which is more important to you.

given how shallow these types of attacks on Neil McE and others are, the best option is to let off a bit of steam and respond in kind otherwise you let it all build up and get to you. Had the attack been about his, or anyone else’s, platform of policies or track record in representation then it would deserve a different class of response. So nothing lazy about it, I just pick a response that I feel suits the situation. You obviously don’t like this approach to life and do what suits you. Perhaps you should learn to understand that we are not all made the same way.

Incidentally I have not been out canvassing for Neil McE although had I been based in or near his constituency I would have done so. He has a sound story to tell with a track record of representing his constituents in addressing their various problems. Unlike those in the Labour party machine who have no story but plenty of time to smear others.

Bore da dafis. I agree – although it doesn’t earn you ‘Brownie points’ with the masses. But what the hell, if you don’t fight fire with fire you get burnt. Someone once said to me “you don’t fight a bare knuckle opponent wearing your boxing gloves”! I can see the point of throttling back if you’re a politician hunting votes, but we the ‘guerillas’ are not here to win a popularity contest. We don’t fight by the PC rules, and we need to shock and awe at times for others to realise we mean business, and to open some eyes to the reality and truth. Fuck the labels they pin on us. Tell it as it is is in raw form, otherwise you don’t get the message across.

Simple – ‘parchusrwydd’ and politeness doesn’t work with some people. That should be clearly visible, given the ‘sons of the manse’ track record within Plaid and the resultant squishy and malleable mass they’ve turned themselves into.

@ Big Gee
“And don’t get me started on women only selection lists . . . .”
Historically women have been excluded or discouraged to the point of effectively excluding them from politics. Women only selection lists are a way of changing this and inevitably some capable men are going to lose out with such a method .
You could say that the political sons are paying for the “sins” of their political fathers. However without such women only lists you could say that the political daughters are paying for the “sins” of their political fathers.
In addition to an equal opportunity issue we have a situation where women are under represented in politics. So there’s a question as to whether the needs and wants of 50% of the population is adequately represented and therefore reflected in legislation that’s generated and therefore the type of society we live in..

To follow on I think there’s merit in having Cymry only selection lists for a number of matters, including within the areas of housing and jobs. My argument is that there are many situations in Cymru where the Cymry( by identification rather than language) are under represented and a form of Cymry only selection lists could be part of the solution. Again there would be winners and losers. Would being part of the winners group in this case alter you opinion of closed lists or is your view of such lists a comprehensive principle?

You must remember that Big Gee and Dafis are old-fashioned stick-in-the-muds, not ‘with it’ young dudes like us.

But seriously, you have hit on something important with Cymry-only selection lists. There is no reason why local connections should not override other considerations in social housing so that a family of low-lifes from Leicester, who’ve been evicted and are now technically ‘homeless’, don’t automatically qualify for social housing in Lampeter ahead of locals.

Implementing such a rule would a) save public money, b) stop Welsh communities being disrupted by neighbours from hell, and c) help preserve Welsh identity.

When it comes to jobs, the issue is not so clear cut, for one simple reason – the woeful lack of education and training available in Wales. The health service would be a good example. Everybody bangs on about ‘attracting more doctors, etc’, even Plaid Cymru. But the answer is to train our own, because Welsh doctors, dentists, physiotherapists and all the rest are more likely to want to work in Wales than outsiders.

In the area where I live all the ambulance drivers/paramedics seem to be English, either because the so-called Welsh Ambulance Service doesn’t believe in training locals, or it’s cheaper to import paramedics who’ve been trained elsewhere, or it’s just pure racism.

Thousands of jobs are lost to Wales through cross-border arrangements that benefit only England. I pay my electricity bill to Scottish Power and my meter is read by somebody who comes down from Wigan! That’s because the meter-reading contract has gone to a firm in that town.

Everybody bangs on about what a wonderful example of Welsh initiative Dwr Cymru is, but all the company’s work is contracted out to Morrison Utility Contractors and O’Connor of Manchester. Yes, of course they have ‘offices’ in Wales, and they employ Welsh people, but where do the profits end up?

Wales is run as a colony of England. THIS is the problem. Plaid Cymru is too afraid to confront it so something else is needed. It needn’t be a political party, in fact, it might be best if it was a movement rather than a party, but we must have it. Once the dust is settled on the UK general election, and we can see that Plaid Cymru has failed, yet again, it will be time to start organising.

Cymry only selection lists ? you got no bloody chance ! Every time somebody pipes up with a line such as “Fluency in Welsh essential” in a job specification, the mouthy “influencers” pile in with a load of guff such as “it will reduce our international standing if we don’t select the best, and insisting on Welsh will reduce our chances of securing the best”. And on it goes until the weak willed Welshie gives in and modifies the requirement to ” some fluency in Welsh desirable” and later further diluted with some nonsense like ” …. although a willingness to learn the language would also be advantageous”. And there you go, straight down the slippery slope into the mess we have today.

Jac’s point about the NHS is spot on. Years of complaining and sweet F.A done about it. Politicians complain that the Cardiff Meds School is anti Welsh favouring the youngsters from English public schools and overseas students ( money, money!). Well as politicians the Cynulliad has the power to enforce a change of attitude at the Med School, a case of justifiable interventionist policy if nothing else has worked. Alternatively ship the students to Scotland or Ireland or further overseas to learn, on bursaries which would guarantee they come back to Wales to work for a given period after qualifying.

As for housing I’d say that a “locals first” policy is a must. This could radically reduce the chances of some dysfunctional clan arriving from darkest England and being fitted up with good quality housing while local people get excluded.

Believe it, or not, I am not taking issue with him just commenting really on the feeble attitudes that tend to crop up when the “need ” for fluency is ever mentioned. Public sector jobs for instance where a full bilingual capacity would be essential if you are minded to be of service to the people of Wales. But then along comes some bloody minded Anglo Brit ( or Welsh Uncle Dai ) and claims that it infringes the rights of Anglo monoglots to apply and hold down that job. Every time that happens we undermine our nation further.

The point about Cymry by identification is also valid. If I want a Sales person in West Wales I want a person ( male or female ) who knows the territory and for economic reasons lives down there. Once the parameters of the competition, i.e the needs of the job are defined then it’s right to hold an open competition. Matters get complicated when someone offers to relocate, but in the absence of an intimate knowledge of the territory I would stick with my brief. Whether you call that an open or closed competition is not something I would dwell on for too long as I have endeavored to favour localised recruitment of people wherever possible.

So are you saying that all public sector workers should speak Welsh? Why not a proportional amount of Welsh speaking roles to service the Welsh speakers? That would represent the Welsh nation and its Welsh inhabitants well wouldn’t it? It would allow the majority English speaking Welsh people opportunities without discrimination.

Jac, I am curious as to why you are curious. Your writing often distinguishes between the Welsh people of Wales and it’s English contingent. I am also distinguishing between the Welsh and it’s English population. As far as the Welsh population goes, the Welsh speaking Welsh should be represented proportionally by public sector workers. The English inhabitants are not being considered when making this point.

Anon – My English is not as good as my Welsh, old boy. I did not say “all public sector workers should speak Welsh ” In saying “a full bilingual capacity would be essential if you are minded to be of service to the people of Wales.” I was making the obvious point that if a Welsh speaker prefers to receive their service through the medium of Welsh then that should be available. Ideally, in the medium/long term, we should reach a point where the public sector at least has a glut of Welsh speakers instead of the pathetic situation we have now camouflaged by the myth that public sector jobs are in some way reserved for Welshies and Nashies. Not much to ask for is it ?

Larger corporates in the private sector should do more than token gestures also. I phoned my bank 2 days ago using a Welsh service line. It was answered by a monoglot Anglo. I enquired about the Welsh service – ” they are not in ” was the answer. “How many of them are there ” I asked. He declined to answer. Which arouses my suspicions that the much heralded Welsh language service is a man and dog affair which gets shunted off the air when the toilets need cleaning or it’s time for someone to nip out to fetch the pies !

So we are being conned rotten by public sector and the large corporates. Welsh is like dog shit on their shoes. Don’t like it but you have to do something about it. And getting people coming on here posturing about giving Anglos a fair crack of the whip is a seriously sick joke. They got the whip in their bloody hands – or haven’t you noticed ?

Thanks for the clarification. To be fair it’s hard to tell sometimes. I agree, if you speak Welsh then a service in Welsh is needed. It is being ignored for efficiency and the gains outweigh the repercussions of minimal protest.

So how can the protest be increased and sustained? Where lies the responsibility for the language?

As far as whips go. Yeah I noticed, its the gimp masks that I find most worrying.

those gimp masks are a speciality of certain segments of the Anglo Brit supremacy and possibly enjoyed also by some of the crachach !! Don’t see them in my community but we don’t have the means or contacts for that kind of frivolity !

Just a note to di-enw regarding women only selection lists – it is not only capable men who may miss out, capable women do as well, they miss out to their ‘sisters’ with sharper and more unscrupulous elbows. I have seen this phenomenon again and again in situations in which ‘being a woman’ is stated as a desirable criteria eg. job applications in fields where women are under-represented. I have known of situations where really good women have not applied for senior jobs because a sharp elbowed cow with less ability knows that the only way that she can gain advantage is by playing the gender card and has intimidated the better candidate into not applying. As for women only shortlists for parliamentary candidates – Harriet Harman loves them, yet what did Harriet actually do in one election? She tried to crowbar her mate Miriam O Reilly (the former BBC presenter) into a safe seat for which another FEMALE candidate had been selected by the local party – a young woman with longstanding local connections and a background in trade unionism, ideal you’d think. No – Harriet and Miriam tried to turf her out by claiming that Miriam was being discriminated against on the grounds of her age – Miriam had of course just famously won a legal case against the BBC on the grounds of age discrimination. There was no age discrimination at work regarding the selection of the labour candidate, Harriet and Miriam were just using any bloody argument that they could to try and ensure that Miriam was going to land a job that she wanted. I know that women-only shortlists were established with the best of intentions but the process is open to abuse. Furthermore, unless the playing field really is grossly unequal and you’re Nancy Astor or someone, why should a characteristic that you are born with entitle you to special treatment in the labour market? For me to say that I deserve a certain job simply because I am female is no different to stating that Cameron’s characteristics as a white male entitle him to a job. Being female is not an ability that I have, it is not a skill that I have developed or an attribute that I have worked hard to develop – I was born female, its as simple as that. Unless there is an over-riding need for a position to be filled by someone female (eg. the job involves doing something that only a woman can do – a surrogate mother perhaps??? – or is in a field such as intimately caring for other females with eg. disabilities, or working with women who have experienced sexual violence from men), I think to positively discriminate in favour of women simply adds another layer of unfairness and possible abuse of process. Furthermore, it’s social class that really holds people back these days, not gender. Harriet Harman is the daughter of a Harley Street doctor – she was born into a far more privileged position than most men and far from being oppressed, I suspect that if Harriet’s father had not been upper middle class she would never have got anywhere near the higher echelons of the Labour Party – furthermore Harriet is not actually very bright and a couple of weeks ago I heard her dismiss a piece of gender theory as ‘sociological claptrap’ because she very obviously couldn’t understand it.

I think it’s more nuanced and complex than that. At one point it was undoubtedly a man’s world, there was sheer naked bigotry to women who tried to get in (eg. Barbara Castle and the shite that was thrown at her – Margaret Thatcher did of course encounter the same bigotry but used different techniques to make her way, a weird combination of being ‘more of a man’ than the men whilst simultaneously flirting like there was no tomorrow and banging on about her ‘femininity’, such as that time when she waxed lyrical about her ‘red chiffon dress’ and ‘gently waved hair’ ‘yet they call me the iron lady of the western world’). But these days it is no longer considered an outrage for women to enter politics, the professions or ‘leadership’ roles, but gender dynamics, as well as numerous other dynamics, are at work, so different techniques are employed. In terms of politics there seem to be certain narratives that women are obliged to subscribe to – eg. being a ‘strong woman’, even if it can be demonstrated that they are anything but. (and of course what does the bandying about of this term say to women who are vulnerable, oppressed and feeling anything but ‘strong’ – it is alienating). And women who ‘break the glass ceiling’ in many arenas only break it because they have exactly the same values as the men whom they claim to be so different from – ‘diversity’ is not achieved simply by having a variety of genders/ethnicities etc if the same group values are adhered to – look at the sort of women who succeed in the City… A further irony is that although women do not need a male partner to be socially accepted anymore, scores of ‘successful’ women have been given a considerable helping hand by being the partner of a well-placed man – only now this is dressed up as being part of a ‘power couple’ (Bill and Hilary for example…) An analysis of the gender dynamics involved in becoming a ‘successful’ woman would fill volumes and it is laughable to try to summarise it in terms of ’empowerment’, ‘strong women’ ad nauseum and suggest that simple positive discrimination will solve the inequity – these are slogans and ideas that politicians have lifted from glossy women’s magazines rather than meaningful comment. And I firmly believe that social class is at present a far bigger cause of inequality than gender…

@di-enw:
“Historically women have been excluded or discouraged to the point of effectively excluding them from politics“.
True, correct and very wrong. However that is water under the bridge, history, gone, never to be revisited. We are now living in the 21st century (despite Jac’s comment “Big Gee and Dafis are old-fashioned stick-in-the-muds, not ‘with it’ young dudes like us” – a sense of humour to match the sour face of his avatar that man!).
@ di-enw:
“You could say that the political sons are paying for the “sins” of their political fathers. However without such women only lists you could say that the political daughters are paying for the “sins” of their political fathers“. That’s a load of old bollocks – and you know it.

All women selection lists are promoted by politicians like that old hypocrite that represents Cwm Cynon. The one that encouraged Blair & his cronies to invade Iraq, on the pretext that poor little children were suffering under Saddam Hussein – she was successful and then watched as between 800,000 and a million innocent children under 18 died in horrendous circumstances. Many millions more dying and starving in the aftermath within a country with a demolished infrastructure. She was the one that supported Cameron’s proposal that the UK should start bombing Syria. What a witch with a blood lust! But she’s the strong voice for the introduction of all female selection lists. Makes you wonder doesn’t it?

The REAL reason why women are under represented in the political system is because they are not attracted to it. As a percentage of the population how many bricklayers, plumbers, highway workers, steeplejacks or oil rig workers are women? There’s a very good reason for that. Men and women do not have the same physiological or psychological make-up – despite the crap spouted by the liberal ‘progressives’ and feminists. Men and women are not the same at the most basic level – that’s a fact that won’t go away. Men are laden with testosterone, it makes them slightly autistic, aggressive, physically stronger, dominant and competitive, that’s reflected in the political arena. Women are caring, naturally non autistic (unless they suffer from autism as an illness), they are kinder, gentler and nurturing. Their primary function is the care, feeding and nurture of newly borns (have you noticed that you haven’t got the physical apparatus to feed a baby?). It is nature, all mammals are made like that, the males and females have distinct functions, despite what the ‘progressive’ PC liberal extremists and feminists would have you believe. You can’t go against nature – all female selection lists is trying to do just that – go against nature. The PERSON selected to represent the people by local parties should be the best person to represent the people – regardless of their gender. It just so happens that fewer women see themselves in that role, and fewer are attracted to the job. IT’S THE WAY THEY’RE MADE STUPID!

However there are some women who are attracted to the job. Have you noticed how well they do? Hardly an advert for them being held back after being elected is it? Although that’s the myth espoused by the feminists. These female political ‘heads’ of their parties have been selected from within a male dominated political environment – do you still believe they have been dicriminated against, or held back? Here they are:

Four of the five of these leaders also happen to be quite pretty, but that’s not the point. I won’t name the not so pretty one because I feel very strongly about the wrongness of attacking people on their physical appearance – no one can help the way they look and can’t change it. That’s why you’ll not find me doing that in the comments I post on this Blog. It is a terrible thing to do and should be left in the school yard (sorry dafis). Even that woman in the ‘Happy Donkey Hill’ post and that other ignorant clown Martin Shipton should not be attacked on their appearance, anything else is fair game. For instance Shipton can do something about being an ignorant clown, he can’t do anything about the way he looks, and even if he could, it has nothing to do with his attitudes, views and behaviour.

Apart from personal insults based on appearance anything else goes – , fangs, claws, knuckle-dusters or even the kitchen sink . . . . . I told you not to get me started on women only selection lists!

You’re spot on that the mug shots of those whom you have featured were selected from a male dominated political environment – and of course one of the obvious ways for some (not all I stress) women to advance in that environment was laid bare in the furore that blew up over Lord Rennard of the LibDems some time ago. There was media outrage over Rennards alleged sexual harassment and the implication that favours for Rennard could get you a long way in the LibDems but interestingly enough this confirmed what I was once told years before by someone who had previously been a member of the LibDems youth wing – he maintained that at the time a young female LibDem in Wales was indeed employing what Private Eye termed Ugandan relations (sorry, I know some correspondents to this blog have a problem with the Eye) to build her career. If I was being told the truth, it has proved a phenomenally successful strategy for her. (The same person remembered Lembit having many encounters as well, but remarked that Lembit was quite honest about it – unlike the other person…) You are quite correct in saying that a lot of women are just simply not attracted to politics – but then our elected representatives have alienated swathes of people, both male and female. I can’t agree that the testosterone surging around the male bloodstream leads to all the characteristics that you list though – yes, its responsible for muscle development, greater physical strength and a number of other physical characteristics, but there’s bugger all evidence that men are less caring, less kinder or more competitive. There’s plenty of evidence on this blog that women can be ruthlessly competitive, its one of the main threads! I know people researching autism have come up with theories that it is ‘an extreme male brain’ and such, but there have been challenges to that and there’s a whole body of research growing that suggests that autism in females is being very much underdiagnosed because it manifests itself differently. But then the likes of me allege that there is so much bad practice in psychology and psychological research anyway that we may actually not know very much about ‘autism’ at all…

I was merely trying to demonstrate the complexity of gender issues – and layers of disadvantage from other factors such as social class… I deliberately refrained from commenting on Cymry only lists, I do not know enough about the arguments involved – but I do seem to know considerably more about gender scholarship and theory than many of the people who feel able to mouth off about this in the political arena.

Jacques is always a busy boy, he’s been helping the ‘protesters’ in Llangennech, and may even have made a few trips down there. I’m not sure what car he drives, but I don’t think he’s linked up with Louise Hughes and her gang. Then again, these people do have a habit of finding each other, it might be done by smell.

Hi Jac. I received my publication of issue 1 of VISION yesterday and I am pretty sure if there is an issue 2 that it wont be until just before another election. A blatant Labour party Publication and as such should be declared as such as part of their election campaign costs. I have just posted some comments on their FB page and after I had posted I scrolled down and much to my surprise I found out that you had already beaten me to it and you dont even live in Swansea !!! Does this constitute as election fraud? Should the costs of printing and distributing this be declared as part of the Labour party election campaign?? Should this be reported to the Electoral Commission???

“…handed out by Louise Hughes and her scruffy companion in Trawsfynydd, and their allies in Dolgellau, such as MM and ARE.”

I was unable to decode this. Who are MM and ARE?

Councillor Louise Hughes does have a certain talent for publicity. She receives endless puff pieces in the locally delivered Sibrydion Cymuned.

But, does she believe anything, or have a political vision or viewpoint for Meirionnydd?

Her election literature is normally full of platitudes like “Louise believes in what works best for local people” or “Louise thinks the needs of local residents should be listened to”. Public toilets or bin collection or dog litter is what seems to motivate her.

On language issues, my guess is, if pressed, she’d say some bullshit phrase like “Louise supports what works best on the ground”.

However, did she really admit to handing out that leaflet? Because it is clearly hate literature and so she should be reported to the police.

The leaflet does make some good points on other issues. Why did Gwynedd council close the Tourist Information Office in Dolgellau (which supported 2 or 3 local jobs) and sell off the Council buildings in Dolgellau at an auction house in Manchester ?

Obviously I’m not going to name these individuals, but they know who they are, and now they know that I know who they are.

When I spoke to her on the ‘phone last Saturday she admitted to handing out that leaflet in the cafe in Trawsfynydd. I think she admitted it because I took her by surprise, and when she did grasp that I was phoning about the leaflets, I’m not sure she understood where I was coming from. Hence her openness.

As for vision, Louise is a self-publicist, nothing more. Louise believes in . . . Louise.

Either I’m going blind, or feeble minded, I’m still in the dark! Well? ARE you going to repeat it? To put me out of my misery, or are you just going to tease by saying you’re going to repeat it and then say nothing.

I am not going to name those for whom I gave initials because . . . Unlike Louise Hughes, who I know was distributing these leaflets in Trawsfynydd (confirmed since by another source), I have no evidence or eye witnesses for those I hinted at being involved with the leaflets. All I’ve been told is that they are part of the same ‘gang’. Until I get stronger evidence I will not name them.

I agree with both Big Gee and Jac that Louise Hughes seems to be such a political opportunist. Just look at how on the one hand she used to be in Llais Gwynedd, which of course is a pro-Welsh Language party, yet now she seems to be a female version of Jacques Protic. I mean, what kind of political transformation is that?

Having said that though, if it were not for her ugly attitudes towards the Welsh Language that she has spouted out now, I would instead say that she was a rather fun local politician to have in your community.

It seems that the Fro Gymraeg, or at least, the anglicised areas of what was once the Fro Gymraeg, have produced a special breed of political maverick which seem to be against pretty much anything, are very good at broadcasting their tantrums about it, and it seems that these characters are also the very same people who seem to believe that, as Jack has said, that the Welsh Language is to blame for everything that is wrong, from infant mortality rates to potholes. There are many, slightly less extreme, versions of Louise and Jacques Protic in my experience to be found in Gwynedd and Anglesey.

“but we the ‘guerillas’ are not here to win a popularity contest. ”
I can’t see Cymru getting closer to independence and achieving it by any other way that by winning popularity contests. Do you think there is an alternative way?

you seem to have bought into the “give’em bread and circuses school of politics”. Competing to see who can put out the biggest stack of lies and bullshit may appeal to some, but somehow I don’t think it does to you.

Our politicians need to pay more attention where the fabrications and manipulations of our opponents are exposed and tackle those who engage in selective reporting of crimes and wrong doing so they are held to account. That is the bit that disappoints me with the present Plaid leadership. We are awash with evident underperformance painted up as “success” and yet the Party doesn’t go on the attack with the degree of sustained energy that’s called for in such a dire and dangerous situation. A vigorous political class addressing these issues would do away with any need for irritating bastards like me and Gee and we could buzz off and tend to our veg plots or whatever is our main interest.

The Englandandwales scenario so often predicted by Jac will happen for sure if these grim realities are not confronted.

“A vigorous political class addressing these issues would do away with any need for irritating bastards like me and Gee and we could buzz off and tend to our veg plots or whatever is our main interest.”

Funny you should mention that dafis! If you have an interest then check out one of my other sites by clicking HERE

Da iawn, dyn y rhandir ! Allotments are good for all sorts of physical and mental health reasons. I don’t have one myself but I live not far from a tract of (relative ) wilderness which gives me, my wife and dogs a place to get away from it all. I have mixed feelings about the place. On the one hand I think more people should visit it as its existence is well known, but on the other the solitude is fantastic as early yesterday morning we enjoyed a 9-10k walk along a beautiful beach and the adjacent mixed wilderness hardly meeting a soul, and that too has its advantages.

Everyone needs a bolt hole to escape to from the maddening world dafis. Mine’s the allotment, where you not only bugger yourself up physically, but more importantly you let your head relax. It’s a must. My allotment is my little world away from everyone and everything – it helps you realise how we should all live in a normal sane world, away from the rigours of this modern and insane western world. Sadly those who don’t have such an escape fall victims to stress and depression.

Yes. By intelligent and informed debate, the educating of the masses (through our education system), and the highlighting – at all opportunities – the reality and truth about our situation.. The most important being our education curriculum – the problem is crass ignorance. And you mustn’t tolerate lies, manufactured myths and propaganda.

In the mean time we have to stick up for ourselves, lying on your back and prostituting yourself to your enemies in order to be popular and for fear of annoying people does NOT work. ‘Parchusrwydd’ and politeness do not work – they never have worked, unless you have something stronger behind your back to bring to the negotiating table. Knowledge of our identity and an understanding of who we are is a very strong tool. Why do you think that all colonising powers always attack three things.

1. A nation’s history and knowledge of it’s heritage
2. Its culture
3. Its language

Lose any ONE of those three and the other two crumble and your nation becomes extinct. You can be very popular if you support those actions – but by then you will be totally assimilated.

“Do not go gentle into that good night,
. . . . .
Rage, rage against the dying of the light“.

@ Jac
Cymry only lists can, as I said be part of the solution however without the detail they will mean different things to different people.
We must be acknowledge that whatever form they may take and however they might to be applied they have an inherent weakness. It is very easy for those that oppose them to label them as unfair and discriminatory. It is easy for them to do this because in a UK context where Cymru is just a part of the Kingdom’s estate, they are, that is the point of them.

Regarding those you describe as “low-lifes” there’s a lot of anecdotal evidence pointing to extra problems created in our communities because of this process but we shouldn’t expect any help from government bodies or NGOs in providing any actual data. Also a further problem is that if it was available it’s use in building a case for Cymry only lists would be portrayed as being racist and the all powerful media would take that view also.

To counteract this we need to justify revealing where those breaking the law come from and something positive that the public in Cymru can back.

For the first we have our culture. The English and Welsh way of making connections with and finding out about people we meet is different. The English way is more to ask about their job, the Welsh way is to ask where their come from. So it’s an established and legitimate cultural trait to want to know what town or village of those sentenced originally come from and have lived in since. And of course that holds for anyone who gets sentenced and not just those from the other side of Clawdd Offa. An argument against that approach is basically bias against a culture that happens not to be English. .

Secondly we need to promote the initiative not by blaming those that have been sent here but pointing out that our opportunities are being adversely affected by a system and organisations that are powerful and wealthy and solve problems in their areas by taking advantage of us.

I agree with every word you’ve written there di-enw. Very wise, very sensible, very true.

The problem is that we are an abnormal country. We are not viewed as a people who have a country, borders, or a distinct identity of their own that should be respected. That has been the problem since we were defeated (the victor/ vanquished syndrome at it’s worst) and certainly enhanced after the 1536 & 42 Acts of Union (which nobody consulted with us about – our voice was not even invited into the discussion). Anyone from England can come to Cymru today and vote in our elections tomorrow. Worse still, they are classed as Cymry (or should that be ‘Citizens of Cymru’), with as much say in our affairs as the next man.

What you’ve done here is highlight an important aspect of the relationship we ‘enjoy’ with England, one that regards the colonisation of Wales and the destruction of Welsh identity as normal, unavoidable or even acceptable, yet challenging the irreparable damage being done is ‘racist’. This is the world turned upside down, but it works in silencing too many Welsh people.

You argue that Cymru being part of the UK state weakens our case, I disagree. The case now being made against immigration into England is that it causes social disruption, overburdens the NHS and other services, factors that come into play whether Wales is part of the UK state or not. And the levels of immigration into parts of rural Wales are far higher than into any part of England. This ‘part of the UK’ argument is just self-serving English hypocrisy.

There is no hope for Wales until enough of us can reject the brainwashing implicit in the ‘we’re all British’ argument. Until enough of us say, ‘This is Wales, it’s our country’, and you are not going to take it from us’. Because the bottom line is that we are confronted with colonialist exploitation in the economic sphere and blatant colonisation in the social and demographic spheres.

Jac, can’t be arsed logging in, creating a persona etc. Tremendous, worthwhile and informative endeavour you are undertaking, a real stimulus to the discussion of Welsh affairs. I can’t help thinking though that someone’s going to fuck you sooner or later on libel grounds, if not for your own sterling excavations but the comments of your commenters. (I should have asterisked the word f***, mae’n ddrwg gen i.)

Trouble is if all of us couldn’t be arsed logging in then every comment on here would be labelled ‘Anonymous’.

Well I for one won’t be gagged for fear of a ponce in a dark suit trying to shut me up (and they have tried a few times). Free thought and speech are essential to our existence as free humans. So fuck them, and I won’t piss about substituting letters with asterisks – how pathetic is that? For me it’s the height of political correctness – “you all know what I’m typing – but I’m too scared/ polite to spell the word properly“. Get a sane life for fuck’s sake! Who wrote the rule book to dictate what you can or can’t type in a comment on a blog?

As I keep on saying it’s a mad upside down & inside out world where people are allowed to legally murder, rape and torture in conflicts, or hide high level paedophile rings that abuse and murder children – but you mustn’t type the ‘F’ word in your blog!!!

It’s because of the pathetic acceptance of this system by the compliant public that allows this situation to exist.

I’ve named a few folk in my comments but as I don’t want to be responsible for Jac receiving (any more) solicitor’s letters or having his blog taken down, I’m happy to say that I do take care to word my comments carefully – I report either what I have witnessed myself, what I have documentary evidence of or I make it clear by stating that my information was given to me by someone else by prefacing my comments with ‘I was told…’, if indeed I was told. If info doesn’t fall into these categories I don’t post it online…

Don’t worry too much about the parasites in dark suits drsallybaker, we’ve dealt with everything they’ve thrown at us in the past.

As for closing the blog down – that’s easier said than done. The blog is privately hosted in a data centre in Dallas Texas via SCCambria, and the only way anyone can shut it down (except by international court order) is through SCCambria the company that deals with the hosting of the site – and I can assure you it would take an earthquake or tsunami for the plug to be pulled (unless Jac turns into an English Nat or a paedophile overnight!)

Unlike Google’s Blogger service (see the right hand side panel) – who shut sites down on a whim, or a casual complaint (as Jac has experienced in the past) I can personally guarantee that SCCambria will take an AWFUL lot of persuading to do the same.

“Brexit could wipe out Welsh farming……” says your tweet column, and cue then for all those purist free marketeers to start lecturing on how these lazy stick in the mud farming folk should embrace competition, marketing blah blah blah. In theory part of that kind of response may be right, but look closer at the reality of the industry.

Apart from the very few highly prosperous units much of Welsh farming is still undertaken by smaller family units. These have been placed in a high dependency condition by successive UK and more recently EU policies. So the farmers’ spokesman is quite right to pipe up in the absence of any London government commitment to continuing with a similar grant/subsidy mechanism, and the more frightening prospect of the UK’s trade negotiators doing a deal for cheaper foods from overseas as part of a “bigger picture” thus depressing at a stroke the natives’ market share. Were they all big banks someone would have found a way of bailing them out a long time ago.

As Jac rightly points out this can have other serious consequences for us as a nation. I have long held the view, since pre milk quotas in early mid 80’s, that the very long term strategy of UK and EU governments is to have a covert rural clearance policy which then creates resources available for the large corporates to snap up and develop into leisure, tourism and “paid for ” recreation, with military training in some secure remote areas. That will bring a plague of Bare Grills types with city suits in tow ensuring that they are maxing out on the yields of their investments and any surviving natives will live off the crumbs that fall off the tables of these greedy merchants.

Bleak ? you bet it is. Anyone doing anything about it ? Not much as far as I can see. The Tories will be happy that their chums in the City are doing well, they now appear to have the farmers vote no matter how hard they piss all over them. Labour don’t really give a damn about the rural vote, and dear old Plaid still see the rural vote as tainting it with being too Welsh !!!! Well WTF is Plaid for ? Just making up the numbers on the QT panels, spouting platitudes that reinforce the image of Wales as just a bunch of Labour party lookalikes ? There’s a great chance here for the Party to develop a vision for not just agri but our key manufacturing sectors such as they are, before the London mob and their globalist masters & cronies close us down completely.

Happy to say I have been re-elected councillor for Fairwater Cardiff along with Lisa Ford and Neil McEvoy. Defeating Paul Mitchell who made the complaint that led to Neil being before the Ombudsman and your old friend Sketty councillor John Baylis.

That’s the best news I’ve had all day, Keith. In fact, it’s a package of good news. As for my “old friend” John Boy, he was actually (or officially) councillor for Uplands, though he lived in Cockett. But who cares where these people claim to live, they’re just drifters with no roots or real commitment to any community. Unlike us.

If you see ap Siôn, buy the miserable old bugger a drink for his birthday, I shall recompense you handsomely when next we meet.

Llongyfarchiadau i’ch tri ! Parry, Ford and McEvoy – has a nice ring to it, the Cardiff West front of the process of change seems to be taking shape nicely.

If any of you want people to write inoffensive, deeply philospohical stuff then apply on here and I’m sure Jac will connect to a few takers. On the other hand if it’s risky abrasive stuff you looking for, I’m sure Jac will send you a connection to me !!! Knock ’em over with your energy and enthusiasm, there’s plenty of people in those parts of Cardiff that need classy representation.

Why does the BBC have an article on the election result with the headline “Red Roars In Rhondda” 5th May 1443hrs. When in fact, Plaid Cymru got 18525 votes against Labour’s 16985 votes, and in actual seats Plaid Cymru won 14, Labour 10, Indy 1 in Rhondda ?

The incorrect entry on the BBC website also has a photo of the Pontypridd count, originally tweeted by Owen Smith showing their assembled cheering Labour councillors in neighbouring Pontypridd constituency (mysterious valkarie included) alongside the sitting Labour member for Pontypridd town, who was in fact, unseated by Heledd Fychan of Plaid Cymru, who romped it.

Simple reason & it’s pretty obvious – it fits the MSM agenda, which in turn is the official mouthpiece of the establishment. Haven’t you noticed they’ve done the same thing in Scotland? If you’d just arrived on the planet you couldn’t be blamed for coming to the conclusion – based on the British Bullshit Corporation reports – that the Tories had a landslide of councillors elected in Scotland & Ruth Davidson is about to become the leader of the Scottish parliament! It’s a pathetic attempt at playing down nationalist support. They’re ‘biging up’ the two main London parties to give the impression that these parties mean something in the satellite countries with nationalist parties – ahead of the general election, and of course because the 2nd Scottish independence ‘monster’ is lurking in the shadows.

They’ve even played up Corbyn in Cymru (despite having their teeth in his neck since he won the Labour leadership, basically because he’s perceived as being anti establishment), but even Corbyn is better for them than daring to comment on nationalists. We can thank the SNP for that, Plaid is really a non entity in this game, but London still see them as a nationalist threat in the land they know nothing about.

I’ve had some of this ‘BBC coverage’ that surrounds Oily Smith analysed by a former ‘band manager’ for a tobacco company (consider the difficulties). The findings are interesting, as are the Oily personnel. He is using the ‘reinforcement’ technique to influence the media, which is a technique right out of the top drawer of Pfizer, the pharmaceutical company he used to work for flogging over-priced medicines to the NHS.

The ‘reinforcement technique’ is to feed ‘content’ to an ‘expert’, and this, when this is reproduced by the professor, it adds value to the message, with the objective to by-pass or remove ‘fact checking’. In the case of flogging pills, to get an eminent doctor to reinforce the ‘good’ effects and play down the ‘bad’ effects.

The BBC has ‘political analysts’ on their payroll, and because the BBC know nothing about Wales, or don’t care, they used to employ the services of Laura McAllister (who was much more savvy to such techniques) but the BBC now buss in Prof Roger Scully. It is evident that some of the ‘content’ spewed by Scully is a parallel ‘content’ feed from Oily Smith.

I have no doubt that the New Labour spin doctors that coalesced around Oily during the Smith v Corbyn leadership contest is now part of his ‘team’. This has allowed, either by design or incompetence, a narrative straight from the candidate being spewed as ‘impartial’ or ‘expert’. In this case, failing to remove the authors twitter tag from photos.

I first clocked onto this irregularity during the BBC local election coverage (News24) where Huw Edwards (a journalist who knows the territory) was in the ‘hot-seat’ having to correct the ‘BBC employed experts’ over various facts, live, on-air. A journalistic expertise so absent from other BBC personnel.

We know that the English papers and the Wasting Mule have an agenda, but if the BBC are to be regarded as ‘impartial reporting’ then they need to treat the ‘content’ being fed by ‘BBC pundit-experts’ like Scully with utmost care and suspicion. He’s not called Oily Smith for nothing.

Looks like there’s alot of new, younger Plaid Cymru councillors getting in. Don’t waste time with independents and ‘Llais Gwynedd’ (the voice of nobody but themselves from my experience). With DET also gone it’s onwards and upwards, no more negative influences lurking around complaining.